The Devil You Know
by Tobu Ishi
Summary: It's left to Soul to pick up the pieces after Medusa's betrayal. Mangaverse oneshot, thoroughly angsty. Soul/Maka, if you squint and turn your head a little.


**The Devil You Know  
**_a soul eater fic by tobu ishi_

-:-

They're excused from attending class for a few days, but not from making regular visits to the infirmary, and for good reason.

The deep cuts in Maka's flesh have been prised apart and scoured down to the rawest extent of the damage, stitched back together and bundled over with clean white cotton, but his partner still drifts listless, sleepwalking through the days. They're going to be swamped with makeup work, but she hasn't so much as cracked a book, which scares him more than anything.

Soul's damage was mostly internal and invisible, but his infirmary visits last longer, as Nygus runs checks on his vital systems like she's scoping spywork against a potential rebellion. He can't concentrate, can't sit still without fretting, can't get away from the memory of Maka's cold hands clutching his wrist and her hot tears soaking his sleeve.

Fat lot of good it does a man to realize he's found the one person he'd do anything for, when he's got no damn clue what to do...

Until the second day, when Soul wearily lets himself in with a call of "I'm home," and finds their apartment dark as a cave and silent as a tomb. His first instinct is to flick on the lights. He stifles it on a hunch, and pads quietly into the living room in his stocking feet.

Maka is sitting on the couch, through it takes him a moment to recognize her silhouette in the dark. Her thin frame is almost lost in the enveloping folds of an enormous knitted afghan, clutched around her narrow shoulders and spilling off the couch onto the floor.

Soul pauses--when did they even get an afghan? She must have hauled it from the depths of some closet, one of the many he's never bothered to explore since moving in. After all these years, he still has so much left to uncover; so much he doesn't know.

A lifelong mission. Well, he's willing to accept it.

"Hey," he says, pushing aside a few folds of soft blue knit and sitting down. Her profile is softly lit by the moonlight from the window as his eyes adjust. She says nothing, so neither does he. He's learning to wait, for her.

Patiently, he draws his feet up on to the red upholstery, clasps his knees to his chest, and simply watches her. Her eyes are blank, staring into the dark. The memory surfaces of her dressed in blood-black silk, triumphantly screaming a war cry, and his heart aches. This is his partner, too: this lonely guilt-ridden girl with her pale hair falling loose over her shoulders. This is the powerful depth of her feeling for her friends, running along the faultlines of past betrayals. He loves her for it all the more.

Maka's mouth trembles, works silently for a moment.

"I wanted to believe her," she whispers, into the shadows of the quiet room. The words waver as she speaks them, a tearful _mea culpa_. She bites her lip, trying to stop the trembling, then bursts out in a fierce desperate whisper, "I wanted it _so much--!"_

And he turns and catches her as she lunges across the couch and into his arms, dragging each other close in a desperate tangle as the afghan slides off into a heap on the floor. Maka--his Maka, his _raison d'etre_--burrows her face into his shoulder and clutches his shirt and sobs, sobs out her helplessness and rage. He simply holds her, pushing the wet hair away from her face and cradling her as best he can, while she screams for her lost friend and her ultimate failure and the thoughtless cruelty of a father who would give up anything for her that he wasn't very tempted to do.

Someday, Soul decides that night, resting his chin protectively on his partner's damp head as she sniffs and begins to reassemble her dignity. Someday, he will be in her hand as she breaks her vengeance on Medusa's back. He'll leave that battle to her, as her loyal weapon.

But someday, without involving her at all, he will punch Spirit Albarn in the mouth, hard-knuckled without an ounce of reserve untapped, for all the times his daughter just couldn't. Maybe then his own _mea culpa_s will lie quiet at night.

He holds her close, and hopes.

-:-

_A/N: Written for the Soul Eater gen meme on foxkaiya's LJ account._


End file.
